FBAR for Hipsters

A tk.cpa story-guide

FBAR for Hipsters

Hipster moved abroad, opened a few accounts, started a company, and fell in love. Now the US government wants to know about all of it. This is the story of how he found out -- and what the law actually says.

Hipster, bearded and bespectacled, working on a laptop at a cafe table on a terrace abroad, with a cup of coffee beside him.

Table of contents

  1. 1Meet HipsterWhy an American with a foreign bank account has a filing obligation nobody warned him about
  2. 2The Account With His Own Name On ItThe plain-vanilla case: a personal foreign bank account over $10,000
  3. 3The Company Account He Can Move Money FromSignature authority over his own foreign company's account -- and why that's a separate trigger from ownership
  4. 4The Crypto Exchange AccountWhere the law is genuinely unsettled, and why "probably fine" isn't a filing position
  5. 5The Joint Account With the GirlfriendWhy "joint" doesn't mean "one of us can file for both of us" when you're not married
  6. 6Actually Filing the ThingFinCEN Form 114, the BSA E-Filing System, deadlines, and the automatic extension nobody has to ask for
  7. 7What Happens If He Doesn'tNon-willful and willful penalties, reasonable cause, and the procedures that exist for people who are late but not crooked
  8. 8FBAR on SteroidsForm 8938, the second foreign-asset form: higher thresholds abroad, a wider list of assets, and why filing one never replaces the other
  9. 9What's NextHipster's grandmother, a gift from abroad, and the book that comes after this one